Esperanza Rising Essay

I have chosen to do my final project on the fiction novel, Esperanza Rising written by Pam Muñoz Ryan. The novel, Esperanza Rising was published in the year 2000 by Scholastic Inc., in New York, New York.
Esperanza Rising is a fiction novel about a young girl named Esperanza Ortega. The story first takes place in the mid 1920’s, years after the Mexican Revolution, on a ranch in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Esperanza Ortega is from a wealthy family, as her father is an affluent landowner. However, Esperanza’s father is killed by outlaws who still remained resentful to landowners after the Mexican revolution ended. Thereafter, the Ortega family continues to experience more struggles which causes them to escape to California during the time of the Great Depression. Esperanza is faced with new challenges of a drastically different lifestyle full of manual labor, financial and economic hardship, and personal battles as she lives in a labor camp in California. As time passes, a situation occurs which puts Esperanza’s family in jeopardy, in doing so, Esperanza takes course in this new challenge to save her family.

I chose Esperanza Rising primarily because of the author, Pam Muñoz Ryan’s inspiration behind the story.

It is influenced by her grandmother, Esperanza Ortega’s life story and her experience from when she fled from Mexico to California. While it may be a fictional story, it is personally inspired by a close family member who lived through similar challenges. In addition, I appreciate how the author has done extensive historically based social research to allow the story to be as authentic as possible. Moreover, I chose this novel because it takes place during the Great Depression period focusing on the agricultural labor camps. I have no previous knowledge specifically in this area, and would like to learn and understand how this certain place and era affected people’s lives, society, environment, and

events.
Pam Muñoz Ryan was born in Bakersfield, California located in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, on December 25, 1951. She grew up in a mixed culture household of Mexican roots from her mother’s side, and Oklahoman and other ethnic blends from her father’s side. She attended San Diego State University where she obtained both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. Thereafter, she started her career as an administrator, bilingual teacher, and started a family of her own with her husband and four children. Afterwards, Pam Muñoz Ryan was encouraged by her professors to consider a profession in writing while she was completing her master’s degree in education. Thus, she began to go after her goal of becoming a writer for young adults and children’s books. Since then, Pam Muñoz Ryan has written over thirty books, and many her writings have received honorary rewards and prizes.
Pam Muñoz Ryan was born and raised in California. She appreciates and embraces the diversity in California in terms of regions, environment, symbolic artifacts, landscapes and history. This is apparent through many of her books, especially the children’s book Our California and California Here We Come. Many of her fictional novels takes place in California, during the most important historical events of California’s history. She has a close relationship and appreciation for the history of California and it is visible through her writings. Many of her books are a combination of real, historically researched and factual events in California’s history, which is exposed through racially diverse fictional characters that depicts what people went through during the specified time period.